China Targeted by Vietnamese in Fiery Riots

Firefighters rested on Wednesday near a Chinese-owned shoe factory that was set afire in the Binh Duong Province of Vietnam.

Thanh Tung Truong / Reuters

By CHRIS BUCKLEY, CHAU DOAN and THOMAS FULLER

May 14, 2014

BINH DUONG PROVINCE, Vietnam — Dozens of foreign-owned factories near Ho Chi Minh City lay in charred ruins early Thursday after thousands of Vietnamese workers rampaged over China’s latest efforts to control the South China Sea, this time off Vietnam’s coast.

The riots marked a rare outpouring of popular outrage over China’s increasingly insistent claims to strategically important, resource-rich seas. But in their rage, the Vietnamese workers appeared to misdirect their anger, attacking businesses from countries that took the risk of investing in their nation.

The explosion of violence reflected growing animosity in the region as China works to solidify its claims over vast parts of two seas that other nations have long considered their own.

On Wednesday, the conflict played out not only in Vietnam, but also in the Philippines, which said it lodged a formal protest with China over signs that it is reclaiming land at a contested coral reef. But so far, neither the Philippines nor Vietnam has gotten much backing among other Southeast Asian nations, some of which count on China for investment and aid.

The recent moves by China — covering an area that stretches from Indonesia north to Japan — are part of what analysts see as an effort to create “facts” in the waters that leave China’s less powerful neighbors with few good options for pushing back. Taken together, the actions escalate a longstanding battle that has only deepened with China’s military and economic rise.

In Vietnam, the focus of anger was China’s decision to deploy an oil rig escorted by a flotilla of coast guard and other ships off the Vietnamese coast despite promises to settle territorial disputes by diplomacy.

“It’s just this witches’ brew of aggrievement and nationalism,” Jonathan D. Pollack, who focuses on Asia at the Brookings Institution in Washington, said of the increasingly dangerous contests for control of the South China and East China Seas. “The only option is some sort of move toward shared development, but no one seems to be in the mood for that.”

On Tuesday and Wednesday, the center of those conflicts was the factories in the gritty industrial suburbs north of Ho Chi Minh City, where thousands of poor Vietnamese stitch name-brand sneakers and clothing for sale around the world. Vietnam’s blue-collar workers have expressed discontent over wages and conditions in the past, but in this case the spark was political.

The plants, part of an influx of international investment in recent years, have contributed to more than two decades of uneven, but at times rapid economic growth.

Early Thursday, Nguyen Van Thong, a worker at an electronics plant he said was American-owned, said his fellow workers had been “angry over China’s invasion” when they began driving motorbikes through the streets, lobbing gasoline-soaked rags into buildings. His electronics factory was spared, he said, only when guards trying to fend off an angry crowd pointed to the Vietnamese and American flags flying overhead.

Although Vietnam has been vehement in its opposition to the drilling rig and has in the past loosened tethers on anti-China sentiments, the protests pose a challenge for the authoritarian government, which is wary of unrest that could veer into calls for democracy and eager to maintain good relations with investors.

The country’s leaders face difficult choices in how to respond to China’s latest challenge. Unlike Japan and the Philippines, Vietnam does not have a defense treaty with the United States, which has said it will stand by its allies. It is also more exposed to China’s growing assertiveness; a war, or even heightened conflict, could jeopardize the gains Vietnam has made in recent years after decades of occupation and fighting.

But so far its efforts at diplomacy have failed. Vietnam tried bilateral negotiations with China, but the talk of sharing riches seemed hollow after China dispatched the oil rig without a warning. And Vietnam’s attempts to rally support among its fellow Association of Southeast Asian Nations last weekend fell mostly flat, with the nine other countries in the regional bloc offering only a vague call for diplomacy in place of unilateral action.

The lack of good choices for holding off China might have contributed to the pent-up frustration released this week.

The marauding crowds appeared to take their greatest toll on Taiwanese and South Korean factories. The few workers and guards who remained in the streets, where the acrid odor of burned plastic lingered early Thursday, said they assumed rioters were at first confused about the factories’ ownership, then got caught up in indiscriminate looting that rippled out from the show of anger at China.

Demonstrators waved Vietnamese flags during a protest at a Chinese-owned factory in Vietnam's northern Thai Binh Province on Wednesday.

Reuters

At one Taiwanese factory that had tried to ward off attack, a banner outside the ruined building read “No Chinese working here.” And in a stretch of the Vietnam Singapore industrial park, which includes investors from many countries, companies that hung signs in Chinese were destroyed or damaged, while nearby plants flying flags of other countries were mainly untouched.

“There was quite a lot of damage,” said Chen Bor-show, the director-general for the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office, which functions as Taiwan’s de facto consulate in Ho Chi Minh City. Mr. Chen said that around 200 Taiwanese companies were affected. The South Korean Foreign Ministry said 50 Korean-owned factories were damaged in the riots, and one South Korean citizen was hospitalized.

Tran Van Nam, the vice chairman of Binh Duong Province, where the violence occurred, was quoted by a Vietnamese online news site, VnExpress, saying that around 19,000 workers were involved in the protests.

Mr. Nam said in a telephone interview late Wednesday that the situation was “stable” and that 447 suspects had been detained. “We will restore order as soon as possible,” he said.

The Chinese Embassy in Hanoi issued a warning to Chinese citizens, urging them to “minimize unnecessary outings.” Yue Yuen, a Taiwan-based company that manufactures shoes for Nike, Adidas and other brands, said that it had given its workers the day off on Wednesday, and had not yet decided whether to reopen on Thursday, even though its factories were not damaged.

Jerry Shum, head of investor relations, said that Yue Yuen believed that it could still meet its monthly production targets. Even so, the company’s shares, listed on the Hong Kong stock market, fell 4.95 percent in heavy trading on Wednesday.

As a measure of the scale of Vietnamese production, Yue Yuen made 313 million pairs of shoes last year, a third in Vietnam.

While Taiwanese, South Korean and other foreign companies have flocked to Vietnam for its relatively cheap labor, Chinese firms have been able to meet most of those needs at home.

Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned the rioting and called on the demonstrators to “exercise self-control, don’t behave irrationally, damage Taiwanese factory equipment or threaten the safety of Taiwanese business people.” Further damage, the statement said, “could harm Taiwan’s willingness to invest, and harm the longstanding friendly relations between the people of Taiwan and Vietnam.”

The war of words between Vietnam and China continued on Wednesday. The Chinese foreign minister, Wang Yi, criticized Vietnam for “dispatching a large number of ships to forcibly intervene and brutally ram” Chinese ships around the rig. Vietnam earlier accused Chinese ships of ramming the small armada it sent out to try to stop the rig, and photos showed Chinese coast guard ships training water cannons at Vietnamese vessels.

Workers at the Vietnam Singapore industrial park, where many factories remained closed Thursday morning, seemed shocked by how quickly the protests had spiraled out of control.

One of them, a 23-year-old man, was slumped on the side of a road, covered in soot and bruised from what he described as police attempts to stop the violence and looting. He said he was not involved, but was swept along by a crowd of about 150 workers on motorbikes who were shouting patriotic slogans.

As the police approached brandishing clubs, he frantically searched for a place to hide. He found it in one of the many factories gutted by fire.

Correction: May 21, 2014

An earlier version of this article misattributed a comment about the violence in Binh Duong Province. It was Tran Van Nam, vice chairman of the province — not Tran Xuan Nam — who said the situation was stable and 447 suspects had been detained. (No one named Tran Xuan Nam was interviewed for the article.)

Chris Buckley and Chau Doan reported from Binh Duong Province, Vietnam, and Thomas Fuller from Bangkok. Reporting was contributed by Keith Bradsher from Hong Kong; Choe Sang-Hun from Seoul, South Korea; Austin Ramzy from Taipei, Taiwan; Mike Ives from Hanoi, Vietnam; and Rick Gladstone from New York. Bree Feng contributed research from Beijing.